Anthony (Bartoshevich) of Geneva

His Eminence Anthony (Bartoshevich) of Geneva and Western Europe was Archbishop of the ROCOR Diocese of Western Europe. He reposed on September 19, 1993.

Biographical Timeline

1910: Andrei Georgievich Bartoshevich was born in St Petersburg to Colonel Yuri Vladimirovich and Ksenia.

1917: Andrei, with his mother, went to Kiev (to his grandmother's home). His father joined the Volunteer Army.

During Lenin's New Economic Policy, Andrei and his mother moved to Germany, then joined Andrei's father in Belgrade (working as an engineer).

Andrei studied at the Russian-Serbian Gymnasium (school).

1931: Andrei began a three-year course at the Technical School of Belgrade University. Before completing these studies, he enrolled in the Theological Department under St Justin (Popovich) and Sergei Troitsky. He also corresponded with Metropolitan Anthony (Khrapovitsky) and Milkovo Monastery during this time. He also studied under Pimen Sofronov around this time, writing several icons.

1941: Andrei was tonsured a small schema monk at Tuman Monastery (where the Milkovo monks were) and named Anthony (after St Anthony of the Kiev Caves). He was ordained hierodeacon and hieromonk by Metropolitan Anastasius (Gribanovsky) in Holy Trinity Church, Belgrade, where he was assigned to serve.

1942 Feb: Fr Anthony became teacher of canon law at the Russian Cadet Corps in Bela Tsrkva, near Belgrade, and also taught iconography.

1945 (after WW2): Russian community joins the Moscow Patriarchate. Fr Anthony made archimandrite by Patriarch Alexis I. Fr Anthony desired to serve the Church in Russia (believing it free), but this wish was not granted.

1949: Fr Anthony left Yugoslavia, seeking to follow God's will, and moved to Switzerland to live with his brother, Bishop Leontius of Geneva. He served in different churches of the Western European diocese, including Lyons where he painted the iconostasis and an icon of St Irenaeus.

1952-57: Fr Anthony lived in Brussels. He travelled all over Belgium, visiting the suffering. He established the first Russian Orthodox school in Brussels.

He travelled widely throughout his diocese, noted for his exceptional liturgics and work with youth. He continued to live a monastic life. Noted for his happiness, Bp Anthony attributed this to intense morning prayer. He organised and led pilgrimages to the Holy Land and other pilgrimage sites of the West. He also instructed Fr Peter Cantacuzene to compose a service to All Saints of the Swiss Lands. He edited, published and wrote articles for The Herald of the Western European Diocese of the Russian Orthodox Church Outside Russia.

1960s: There was widespread hope that the Paris Exarchate would unite with ROCOR. In view of this, Bp Anthony refused the title of Archbishop as the Exarchate already had one. (He later accepted, after hopes for unification had subsided).

1974: Bp Anthony spoke forcefully for Church unity and against ROCOR self-isolation. His report advocated preserving the purity of Orthodoxy (against atheism and modernism), to be the free voice of the Church of Christ, to use freedom to understand the enslaved, to cherish Church unity with the universal Church of Christ, to avoid division and avoid seeking out or exaggerating heretics, to call all Russian Orthodox Christians and pastors to unity through love, and to help Russia. He was commended for this middle ground by Elder Paisios.

Abp Anthony held that the Moscow Patriarchate possessed grace despite the bad behaviour of individual bishops. In 1985, he visited Belgrade and prayed at Liturgy in a Moscow Patriarchate church.

1987: Abp Anthony served as First Deputy to the President of the Synod.

1988: Abp Anthony organised celebrations of the Millennium of Orthodoxy in Russia.

Bp Anthony was head of 'Orthodox Cause', which distributed spiritual literature through Russia and spread information on persecution in the USSR through the West.

Bp Anthony was noted for his pan-Orthodox vision and his welcoming to converts. His episcopacy was noted for the peace and love within his diocese, and the brotherly feeling among the clergy. He was a regular member of the Synod of Bishops.